...[T]here’s a lot to worry about — and get excited about and just mull — in “Possible Minds,” a collection of essays by thinkers on the cutting edge of technology and culture, edited by John Brockman, who has chronicled that world at Edge.org since 1996.

Mr. Brockman asks the 25 essayists to riff off a 1950 book, “The Human Use of Human Beings,” by pioneering tech thinker Norbert Wiener. That tome took a dim view of AI’s implications, warning that “The hour is very late, and the choice of good and evil knocks at our door.” Today’s essayists take a range of positions on whether that choice is still at hand, or has already been made, and if so, which option we’ve picked.